1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to transportation vehicles, such as cars and boats, and more particularly to an amphibious vehicle having retractable wheels and sliding hull sections.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous examples of amphibious vehicles are known in the prior art. The term "amphibious vehicles" is generally used to describe vehicles which may operate on land, such as automobiles, but which may also be used for water-borne travel. Most of the prior art vehicles are crude, and often bizarre, adaptions of normally land-bound vehicles. Several patents disclose such devices, among them U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,979,016 issued to S. Rossi; 3,382,836 issued to M. Hume; 3,486,477 issued to D. Pender; and 3,933,112 issued to S. Veazey.
Other devices are specically designed for amphibious locomotion, as opposed to mere conversion of an automobile. Examples may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,399,141 issued to J. Quinn; 3,741,146 issued to C. Durrell, Jr; and Japanese Pat. No. 61-285107 issued to S. Yamamoto. Finally, amphibious vehicles other than cars are also known, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,359,937 issued to R. D'Arena (motorcycle) and 3,987,747 issued to B. Locher (bicycle).
One major problem with these prior art devices is their poor performance characteristics in their water-borne mode. This is typically due to constraints placed on their construction by the need to adapt a vehicle designed only for land-bound travel to a secondary mode of operation. One vehicle that has overcome this deficiency is disclosed in copending application Ser. No. 127,800, of which this Application is a Continuation-in-Part. This device incorporated four fender/sponsons which rotate about each of the tires to enhance the stremlined nature of the vehicle. These improvements, however, led to other engineering problems which are overcome only by complicated (and costly) structural support features. Specifically, the fender/sponson arrangement further required a special gear system, an unusual plate arrangement to seal off the wheel wells, and a locking system for holding the sponsons in place. It would, therefore, be desirable and advantageous to devise an improved, simplified amphibious vehicle which simplified the supplanting of the tires with a more streamlined structure.